German Youth Sentenced in Hamburg for Insulting Jewish Community

Rolf Kempcke, 22-year-old son of a police official, has been sentenced to six months imprisonment for distributing anti-Semitic leaflets during a meeting of German political parties last December. The youth was convicted on charges of “insulting the Jewish community.”

The youthful defendant, during the trial, told the court that he had not meant to insult the German Jews, who he said, no longer play any political role in Germany, as they did in 1933. The reason for this, he said, was that “most of them have emigrated from Germany.” When told by the court that the Nazis had murdered 6,000,000 Jews, Kempcke smiled said that this figure was considered exaggerated even by Jewish newspapers.

The defendant’s counsel shocked the court and spectators with his ardent support of his client’s views. He said that the Americans who “openly showed their dislike for the Germans could be identified with Baruch and Morgenthau.”